It´s been a good week...... Once again, the week FLEW by, but I
guess that is a good thing...... Did I mention that it is
NOVEMBER??!?!?!?

After meeting with Fernando last sunday (as I told you all last
week..) we marked to meet with him everynight this week. And as we met
with him everyday, we found out just how truly prepared he is!!! We were
able to teach him in the chapel, with members present at every lesson,
which was SO helpful!!! Man. As we taught the lessons, he was full of
questions for the members about their experiences and about
everything.... He wants to understand EVERYTHING!!! It is soo cool!!
Really, we didnt teach him much, he basically taught US..... hahah. He
is super intelligent, and learned a lot from his reading in the book of
mormon, from what he had learned at church the few times he went, and
from what we explained.... After we taught a new concept, he got it
completely. AH. SUCH a relief to teach some one who gets it!!! hahaha.
As of thursday night, we invited him to be baptized on Sunday, but he
said that he would prefer to wait and keep coming to church for a while
longer..... But we explained a lot about the importance of baptism and
how he would have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, and he
agreed to pray about it and meet with the elders for his baptism
interview. Friday, after the interview, I asked him how he was feeling
about baptism and he was just like "I´m getting baptized on Sunday"
WOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Saturday night, the elders that work in the other ward that meets
in our building had a baptism and we invited Fernando to go and see it.
It was probably the BEST thing for him in that moment.... He was started
to get a little nervous and worried about a lot of stuff.... worried
about being baptized and staying strong for a while, but then falling
away.... So we were able to talk to him about his doubts and worries
for a while, and then able to all stay and watch the baptism. He was
able to feel the spirit there so strong and see how everything would
happen... He left that night reassured and SO READY for sunday. =]

Sunday, we had Sacrament meeting first and Fernando showed up all
decked out in nice dress slacks and a dress shirt! haha. AWESOME. And he
was so excited for the baptism. In sacrament, the bishop announced that
we would have the baptism after the meeting, and all the members
surprised us a bit by being awesome and congratulating Fernando and
talking with him. SCORE. Then after all the meetings, we had the baptism
and everything went great. Our ward mission leader who helped out in
one of the lessons this week performed the baptism, and several other
members that participated in the lessons this week, and have been
adopting Fernando into the ward were there for the baptism as well. It
was really cool.

Finding and having the opportunity to teach Fernando was such a
miracle. REALLY. I am sooooo grateful for it!! We got here knowing
nothing and with nothing to go off of, but have just been working hard
and trying anyways, and then Fernando just falls out of nowhere, totally
prepared and ready. AH. So great and such a wonderful answer to our
prayers.

Welp.

On to some of the other less exciting happenings of the week..... =]

Monday, we made tacos with the elders for pday..... hahah. Not
quite true tacos, but they were pretty good. An elder from Chile knew
how to make the dough and the tortillas, and it turned out pretty
delicious. Sister Feistner and I tried to make some at home the next
day, and it was a disaster.... hah. Apparently neither of us are very
good cooks.... Our tortillas ended up dense and flavorless.... oh boy.

Tuesday, we had a couple funny experiences....

We were walking up a street to an inactive members house when we
stopped to talk with a man standing in his garage. We started talking to
him, and invited him to church and started talking about our message a
little bit, when he interrupted us and went on a rant.... He started
talking about his church, "Deus É Amor" (god is love) and then said how
he could tell when people had the holy ghost with them, that he could
see it in their eyes and faces. So we were just like "oh really" and
then there was an awkward silence....Sister Feistner kind of laughed and
was just like "well..... do we look like we have the holy ghost with
us?" Then the guy was just like "something is missing". OH SNAP. Then he
pointed his finger right in my face and was like "THIS.... is not of
God" (meanwhile, I´m thinking "what, the sweat dripping down my face
right now cause it´s so ridiculously hot outside???") then he continued
and pointed at both of us and was like "this makeup is of the devil.....
" Then he continued to tell us how we DID NOT have the holy ghost with
us because we use makeup and earrings..... hmmm. Interesting. At one
point, we were getting a little bugged and Sister Feistner was like "are
you telling me that as a representative of Jesus Christ that I dont
have the Holy Ghost with me???" He got super nice after that...
allthough he didnt change his opinon. haha. Sister F. just ended up
bearing testimony about the church to him (pretty confidently... =]) and
he wished us luck and promised to come visit our church
sometime............. yeah right.

After that, we went to visit a little old lady, Nilsa, that is
inactive who we found knocking doors our first week. She works as a
hairdresser and manicurist in her house, and she had a client in there
when we went by. But she invited us in anyways to get out of the sun for
a minute and drink some water. As we were sitting there, another friend
of hers came by. Nilsa turned to Sister Feistner and was like "my
friend just got back from the viewing of a 5 year old girl..." expecting
Sister F. to be like, "ohhhhhh that´s so sad." or something of the
sort. IN REALITY, Sister Feistner hadnt ever heard the word "velório"
(viewing) before, and therefore had NO idea what she had just said. So
she paused for a second and then answered with a huge smile "HOW
COOL!!!!"................. woops. hahah. Everyone was silent (I went to
two viewings when I was in Araras, so I already knew this word and I was
busy trying to hold in my laughter in this awkward moment.... ). Then
Nilsa was like "do you know what that word means??" ... Sister
Feistner´s smile fell off her face and she was just like "apparently
not..." hahahahahah. It was so great..... Not sure if I loved it more
because of the funny situation itself, or because it was finally NOT ME
that made the awkward mistake.... hahah.

WEDNESDAY WAS HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! woooo!

Didnt feel exactly like halloween since it was BAKING outside, but
we tried to celebrate anyways. It was SO HOT the first part of the
week!! Wednesday, I heard that it was about 37 celsius.... not sure what
that is in farenheit, but it was HOT. The sad thing is... it is gonna
get way hotter still!! AGGGHHHHH

As we were walking that day, I kept trying to IMAGINE that we were
walking in Utah, with the leaves falling and only needing a jacket to
feel just perfect outside.... thought maybe I could overcome the heat in
my head. Yep. Didnt work. It was still hot.

That day we taught about the commandments to Rodolfo during the
day, and then again with Fernando that night..... we almost started
laughing when poor Rodolfo was in shock after several of the
commandments... "IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE???" ahhhh. poor guy. A different
day this week he started talking about how people sometimes go on 40 day
fasts and asked us if that was how it worked with the commandments like
the word of wisdom and law of chastity..... Nope. Not quite how it
works buddy. hahah. But dont worry, he is working really hard and
progressing a lot.

That night, after we got home, Sister F. was DYING to carve
pumpkins. BUT, we hadnt been able to find any anywhere..... So, being
creative, she looked in our fridge and we still had two tomatoes left
from our taco making adventure on monday, and decided it´d be better
carving tomatoes than carving nothing... haha. What you all should
realize in this is that Sister Feistner HATES tomatoes. Like big time.
She wont eat them. EVER. If we go to lunch and there are tomatoes, she
avoids them. IF they come mixed in the food, she puts them on my
plate.... If they are cut up in tiny little peices, she STILL doesnt eat
them, and picks them out and leaves them on her plate. She hates
tomatoes SO much that even watching people eat tomatoes bothers her, and
the smell is even worse. SO, when she got this tomato out and started
to carve it, she would pause every few seconds, start to feel sick
because of the smell, then steel up her determination and continue
on.... hahah. It was funny.

But yep. We carved tomatoes!! Then we found some handy little bday
cake candles that I had laying around and put candles
in them and everything. Not the prettiest jack-o-latern I´ve ever made,
but for a tomato-o-latern, it was pretty good.

We also got to eat some of the butterfingers and peanut m&ms you all sent, so it was LEGIT. =]

THANKFULLY, it rained thursday night and cooled off a TON. Thursday-Sunday was actually pleasant! YAY!

Thursday, we got to work with a girl in the ward that has
volunteered herself to leave with us every week. Her name is Leila, she
is 19 and one of the bishops kids. She is SUPER cool, hilarious, and way
fun to work with. She gave us a whole ton of 7 belos (raspberry
flavored candy like now and laters...) and so we decided to share the
love and give her a butterfinger to try. You should have seen her face.
hahah. When she bit in, it kind of fell all over her and she was just
like "what the heck??" hahah. andddddd she didnt appreciate it very
much. Now she keeps going on about how american chocolate is crappy and
so sweet that it will give you seizures..... oh brother.

She loves to help us with our portuguese (make fun of our accents
and teach us hard-to-say words????), and so I always try to ask her
words I dont know and write them down in my planner.... I´ve got a whole
two-page spread in the back full of words I´ve been learning in the
last month.... I asked her what they call billboards here.... and she
was like "its an english word! you should know!" BUT, weirdly enough, it
is NOT billboard.... they call it "outdoor".... WHY???? So we explained
to her how we use that in english and for the rest of the afternoon,
she kept using it as much as possible, mixed in with her portuguese.
haha. it was cute. I like her a lot.

OH, and while we were out with her, we knocked at a house close to
the chapel. The lady leaned out her window to ask what we wanted, we
told her we were missionaries and she was like "oh, thats funny. We have
missionaries here right now!!" Turns out they are catholic, and they
had two catholic missionaries (preists?? I dont know) from the roman
catholic church in São Paulo in their house doing a prayer service for
them and their neighbors. These two catholic missionaries werent too
impressed that we were there though.... they were just leaving when we
arrived, so they walked out in all their attire (they honestly looked
like knights.... just missing the shiny armor...) and when Sister F. was
all like "oh heyyyyy. What church are you from?'" they were just like
"roman catholic. Tchau." Alright. byee. Needless to say, the lady who
lived there didnt want us to say a prayer with her....

Friday, was a holiday. I swear Brazil has a holiday every other
week.......... its ridiculous! Somehow, holidays are always practically
impossible to work at all......... NOBODY is home. Or if they are, they
are having a party and drinking. Really effective.

But, our ward had an activity (one in a million..... they arent
much for activities in our ward....) and we got to go and eat lunch with
them. It was a potluck and all the men cooked..... haha. Well,
TECHNICALLY, all the men were supposed to cook, but I think a few of
them gave up in despair and their wives finished the dishes for them...
hahah. But there was actually a good turnout and everyone enjoyed
themselves. ANDDDD they had icecream! WOO! from this AWESOME little
icecream place close to our house that is soooooooo good!!! mmmm. Did I
mention that I love icecream??? yep. ahhh.

We´ve been meeting with Rodolfo just about everyday this week and
he is progressing A LOT. He is reading almost everyday, and saying
prayers!!! YEAH! and when we taught about the commandments, he agreed to
everything and has been going without coffee ever since. (granted, its
only been a few days, but i´m so proud of him!!) ANDDDD to top it all
off, friday when we went by, HE PRAYED AT THE END OF OUR
LESSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOO!!! We have been pushing for
him to do that for SO LONG!!! ahhhhh. And he did, and it was sooo good,
and I was sooooo happy! He really has come soooo far. Saturday night, he
also came to the baptism service to watch and really liked it. (that
was also a miracle in itself because he has some weird,
unconquerable fear of leaving his house and coming to the church...)
ALSO, saturday, I invited him to mark a date for baptism, and marked the
11th as his tentative day...... ONLY BUMMER---- he STILL didnt get up
and come to church with us sunday morning.... so now his date will have
to be pushed back again.... Hopefully, everything works out in the end
though. Not sure what happened sunday... We came by again in the
afternoon, and he had apparently locked himself in his room ALL day
long, and his mom was pretty worked up about it (please remember that
this guy is 29 before you all get too stressed as well....). Hopefully
he was just sitting in there reading his book of mormon and praying or
something wonderful like that!! hahah.

Oh, funny thing he said saturday.......... we were reviewing over
the plan of salvation with him, and looking in the back of the pamphlet
were they have a layout of everything that happens in the plan.... He
was reading through and thinking through out loud what everything
meant.... When he got to the fall, he was like "the fall..... the
fall..... what is that? Is that when we came out of our mother????"
ahahahaha. Sister F. and I had to try REALLY hard not to laugh at him
too much over that one.....

Rodolfo is super funny and way nice. I´m really loving teaching
him! He is always laughing at himself and it makes teaching super
entertaining.... Like after he understood what the fall really was, he
was laughing with us about it.

Saturday, had another cool experience.... After lunch, we had
planned to go by a family that lives close to our lunch appointment that
day. One of the grown up daughters is a member, and her brother was
recently baptized, but decided after the baptism that he didnt really
believe it, and never came back to be confirmed. Their other sister,
passed away a few months ago, and the whole family is struggling a lot.
Their mom is REALLY having a hard time, as well as their nephew (son of
the sister that passed away) who now lives with them. When we were
planning at the beginning of the week, I didnt know when we should go by
their house, but I just decided to write down to go by there after our
lunch cause we would be close by.... It ended up being perfect timing.
The brother- still doesnt really want to talk to us.... but the sister
who is a member--- Inyra, was having a WAY hard time and was super
depressed, so our timing couldnt have been better. She was upset about a
lot of crap going on in our ward right now, as well as everything else
in their life and stuff. Our ward is frustrating though, because the
ward is VERY un-united.... they arent good about home teaching or
visiting teaching, sundays there are always LOTs of people sitting
alone, and every family just sits by themselves..... everyone is super-
un-animated about everything, and most everyone is going through some
kind of difficulty or challenge. But instead of uniting and helping each
other out, everyone is just goint through their own problems ALONE!!
AGH. It is so frustrating!! But when we talked to Inyra, she just ranted
to us and talked with us for about 2 hours...... But as we were talking
with her, her mood completely changed. She went from being
angry/upset/depressed and ranting to us, to us all turning to the
scriptures and bringing the spirit back. I hope we left her in a better
state of mind.

a few more funnies.....

Sunday afternoon, we were walking back from our lunch and passed by
the little park by the bus terminal and decided to go try to do some
contacts and find some people to teach. Apparently that was a BAD
idea....... There was practically no one out there. We did find two or
three cool people that we will be going back to, but it also was a
little sketchy..... After we invitied someone to come to church, this
guy in his 20s came up to us. He had a big backpack like he was
traveling around and he started talking to us in english, all excited to
talk to americans. Turns out he lived in London for a while, and worked
as a missionary for his church. He was going to catch the bus, and had
to leave super fast, but was interested in hearing more about the book
of mormon, and we were able to explain a little and give him one as he
was running away.... MEANWHILE, a drunk homeless guy had come up to us
as we were talking to him and was trying to talk to Sister Feistner. She
ignored him like a BOSS, and just talked to the kid we were teaching in
english, so that the guy couldnt interrupt as easily.... But I dont
know how she could think straight enough to teach cause this drunk guy
was getting up in her face and muttering in portuguese and jumping on
every word he recognized and yelling it at us... "ENGLISH!!"" "ENLGISH""
yikes.... I think he even touched her hair at one point.... When the
kid left to catch his bus he was like "BE CAREFUL" and we just turned
and walked away as well, and then the hobo guy went on his way....
calling after us "I want to get to know you!! I will get to know you!!"
Yep.... Cool.

After that, we were leaving to head back down to the chapel when we
had to walk by a group of bums sitting on the sidewalk drinking.... As
we came up to them sister F. just said to me jokingly "dont even THINK
about talking to them..." haha. But they saved us the trouble by talking
to US. One guy that was standing there drinking said hi to us and told
us he had come to the church before. We were just trying to invite him
to come back, when all his drunk friends decided that it would be cool
to talk to us as well. Then Sister Feistner almost got into an argument
with a drag queen when she/he told us that she "was saved" because god
payed for carnal sins, and that god gave her this talent and gift of
being a prostitute and she needed to use it................................. YEP. Needless to say we walked away from that one a little bummed. Okay, more than a little.

Gotta love Brazil.

Dont worry mom..... we are being careful. =]

ANDDdddd to end things on a happier note........... here is a
little saying that one of the members who helped out with Fernando this
week shared in one of our lessons, and then quoted again in testimony
meeting yesterday. (sorry if I translate this poorly)

"It doesnt matter the speed, but the direction"

I think a lot of times we get caught up in how much we want to
progress, or where we THINK we should be with the things we are working
on......... When we mess up, we get frustrated because we expect a lot
more of ourselves. BUT, the important thing to remember is the big
picture of the direction we are going. If we are going in the right
direction, then it doesnt matter where we are at right now, we are
MOVING towards our goals. We just need to have patience and trust that
we will get there someday, in the lord´s time.

PS---- Did I tell you all that I hate cockroaches????????? Yep.
They are so gross. Sister Feistner makes fun of me for freaking out.....
butttttttttt, they really gross me out. And they are everywhere here.
ewwwwww.

Love you all soooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have the best week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much for all the emails, I really really really appreciate it.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Well. First off, I cant believe it is pday again!!!! Seems like the
weeks are flying by now...... Did I mention that I´ve been on my
mission for 7 months now????? yep. Time is flying.

So..... about the week..........

Last monday, we had an activity with the elders-------- churrasco
(brazilian bbq), and some futbol. Yep. And Sister Feistner and I both
came to the realization that we do not know how to play
soccer.............. yikes. hahaha. I need a LOT more practice
apparently...... How are these brazilians so talented with their feet??
holy cow.

Tuesday, we had our zone meeting in the morning and then it POURED
almost all day..... Makes it great fun to work in the rain...... No
people on the street to talk to, no one wants to open their doors, no
one wants to let dripping missionaries into their house..... hahaha.
ALSO, we have a little "quintal" in front of our house (just a little
cement area where we have our washing machine and clothes lines... We
found out that when it rains a lot, that little area becomes a LAKE.
hahahaha. It´s a really good thing that our house is just a little step
up from the level of the quintal because if not, our house would have
been a lake as well...... hahaha.

About Rodolfo---

He is really working hard and progressing!!! He has a lot of desire
to do whats right and to learn and wants to understand EVERYTHING
completely..... We are having to really work hard to help him
understand, and trying to break up our lessons more and focus on smaller
topics. Things like prayer are just completely foreign to him and
really hard for him to do..... He also starts to get way overwhelmed
when we are introducing new topics and he doesnt get it yet..... He is
making a lot of progress, and reading a LOT in the book of mormon, but
it is going to take him a while to learn everything.

This week, he didnt come to church again!!! NOOOOOOOOOOO. He lives
about 5 blocks from the chapel, so it was really frustrating that he
stood us up again... We got to his house to pick him up and he had just
left us a note on the gate that said he "sister ward and feistner. I´m
not coming to church today" AGHHHHHHH. Turns out, he just stayed home
and did nothing all day!!! Last night we were bummed that he had just
stood us up for no reason, and didnt know what to even teach him or say
to him..... He also hadnt read the chapters we marked for him the night
before. So, we ended up just turning to one of the chapters that we had
marked--- Alma 42 and read it with him. As we were reading about adam
and eve, the fall, our purpose in our lives and the atonement, we would
stop and talk through what was going on every couple verses. At one
point, Rodolfo stopped us and was just like "wow.... wow. I think that
if I had read this yesterday like I was supposed to, I would have gone
to church today....." It was awesome, because as we were reading with
him, the chapter was answering a lot of his questions..... he kept
having little moments of revalation while we were all sitting there
reading around his kitchen table. Towards the end of the chapter, he
started to get stressed and overwhelmed with all the things he DOESNT
know or understand yet..... Sister Feistner was just like, its okay,
lets just keep going.... AND, what do you know, the next verse was alma
telling his son to not worry. To not worry about the things that he
doesnt understand, but to just trust in the lord and leave his sins
behind and repent. Afterwards, Rodolfo was a little taken aback and
just started laughing..... It is amazing how the scriptures can answer
our questions!!

Thursday this week, we were able to have a lesson with the lady
that I talked to at the little restaurant last week--Edilma......... She
is way cool. We taught about the restoration, and it all went really
well, until we got to Joseph Smith and the book of mormon...... That
really freaked her out for some reason. You should have seen her
face..... Sister Feistner was tempted to stop the lesson just to take a
picture.... (dont worry, we didnt of course. ). It was frustrating that
it stressed her out so much, because she is really an AWESOME
investigator. She wants to find a church to be baptized in, but has
never found a church that she completely agrees with. She studies the
bible and has a lot of faith in God..... But the book of mormon
especially weirded her out.... She was like "why werent the book of
mormon and the bible just written together??" ahhhh. But, she was very
nice and said that she would read it and pray about it. So hopefully she
does.

That was also a frustrating lesson for me, because some how in
there, I got way nervous and uncomfortable and just lost it.... couldnt
teach for almost the entire lesson. Then when I tried to talk about the
book of mormon and bear my testimony, it was like I couldnt speak
portuguese at all and had just arrived in the mission field all over
again. AGH. Those moments are the worst!!!! Hopefully it goes better
when we meet with Edilma this week....

Fernando---

So last week, I was all excited because Fernando just appeared out
of nowhere and came to church. We marked to meet with him this past week
in the chapel, but he ended up never showing up.... Later, he called us
and apologized and explained how he got a job and was working every
day.... Sundays as well. NOOOOOOOOO!!! And he didnt really have any time
to meet with us... even though he had read the chapter in the book of
mormon that I marked for him!! ..... It is the worst when AWESOME,
prepared investigators drop you!!!

BUT, thankfully, the story doesnt end there....... Sunday, we went
into the chapel for sacrament meeting, and Fernando was standing there!!
I was like "you´re here!!" Turns out, he worked all this past week, and
just didnt feel good about it and decided to quit and look for
something else. He said it didnt really make sense, cause it was a good
job, but he felt like he should quit..... WHAT??!!! We of course,
jumped on that one to explain how important it is to come to church on
sunday, and maybe God was leading him to something better that would
make him able to come to church each week.... We marked to meet with him
at the chapel after church in the evening. And he really is as prepared
and awesome as it seemed!!! Wow. We started talking to him about
everything.... He walks past the church fairly often, and saw the sign
saying "visitors welcome" and just decided to come check it out one
sunday. When the sisters before us where still here, he came a few
times, and came to watch general conference, but they were never able to
teach him because he had a different job and was too busy.... He
started telling us how much he likes church and how he always HAS to
come back because of how he feels at church. He told us that the feeling
doesnt last throughout the entire week, and by the time the next
weekend rolls around, he is just dying to feel it again. AH! We
explained how he was feeling the spirit and talked about baptism and the
gift of the holy ghost and how when he is baptized and receives the
gift of the holy ghost, he will be able to feel that feeling ALWAYS, as
long as he lives worthily. Then we were like "is that something you want
to have?". YES. AHHHH!!!!

We ended up just talking with him and answering his questions for a
good 45 minutes..... He understands SO MUCH!! It was amazing! He would
bring up a topic, and then basically answer his own questions before we
could explain it!! He also BROUGHT UP the topic of tithing (a sometimes
iffy subject) and was like "so, can I start paying my tithing right now?
or do I have to wait till I´m baptized??" WHAT??!! This guy is
amazing!! So we explained all about tithing as well....

Then we taught him about the restoration. As we taught, he was just hanging on every word.... SOAKING it up.

We invited him to be baptized, and he said that he wants to!! He
just wants to prepare and think about it a little more first.... But we
marked to meet with him and help him prepare every night this week.
WOOO!! and he was excited about it!!! hahah. MAN. I am SO excited!!!! It
is so AWESOME to have people to teach!!!! YAY!!

OH. And this week, we were able to find people to leave and work
with us!!! MIRACLES!!!! Seriously though, it was so great. We were even
able to do a division for an hour because we had TWO people that we got
to leave with us. !!!! Yep. Slowly winning over the ward here. No big
deal. =]

But we had about 4 people tell us to make sure and mark with them
to leave with us again this week..... Wooo!! Its gonna be a blast.

Funny story:

At church on sunday, one of the speakers started quoting that song
"walk tall you´re a daughter" in her talk.... In portuguese, the chorus
goes something like this: "levanta cabeça, és filha de deus..." When I
heard that, I didnt quite hear it right and thought she said "esfiha"
instead of "és filha"..... "esfiha" is the name for these little
mini-pizza things that they make here, so I couldnt help laughing.....
right in the middle of sacrament meeting. Woops. "lift up your head,
mini-pizza of god...." yep. You all would have laughed as well. Just
admit it. I then decided to share the joy and wrote it down on my
planner for Sister Feistner to understand as well.......... So we had
two immature, disruptive sister missionaries in our sacrament meeting
this week.... Oh well.

SOME AWESOME NEWS---

So, this week we got a phone call from our old district leader in
Araras. He was calling us on his way back to their area after doing the
baptismal interview of one of the investigators that we taught- Larissa.
She was planning to be baptized this past sunday!!! WOOOOOOOOO! So
hopefully, all went well and she was baptized. She is Guilherme´s(who
got baptized there in july...) little sister and we taught her for the
entire time Sister Feistner and I were in Araras. She wanted to get
baptized while we were there, but her mom wouldnt let her. This last
week, the elders went out there and talked with her and took a member
from the ward with them. Turns out they were like long-lost cousins or
something, and now her mom wants to come check out the church, and
decided to let Larissa be baptized! AH!!! WE GOT SO EXCITED!!! =]

Firstly, THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE LETTERS, EMAILS AND PACKAGESSSSS THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh my gosh. you all are the best!!!!!!!!!!!!! =]

It might take me a while to write back to everyone, but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Alright. so about my week.

We worked our butts off this week. Really.

Last tuesday we did our planning session and everything. Which,
btw, doing a weekly planning session following "preach my gospel" is WAY
intense and can take HOURS...... And does take hours.......... Its
pretty painful. But, being dilligent little missionaries, we did it
anyways. Complete with our "companionship inventory" -- talking about
what we need to do to improve, making goals, and helping eachother know
what to work on and stuff.... Yep. It was intense.

BUTTTTT, point being, we planned out our week and made a bunch of
goals and Sister Feistner helped me set some good goals for myself to be
more talkative and outgoing and do my part in our companionship and as a
missionary. ANDDDD, it was awesome!!! Some goals like contributing more
to our lessons, not falling asleep while teaching or in people´s
houses(yep..... I´m ALWAYS tired.... so this has happened.... woops.)and
talking to everyone. Like, for example, we have some weekly goals for
numbers every week throughout the mission.... Our mission president set
standards for how many contacts, lessons, visitors at church, baptisms
marked, lessons with members and that kind of stuff... and they are just
a goal that we try to reach each week. For contacts, (telling someone
quickly about how we are missionaries and inviting them to church.... )
we have a mission goal of 140 contacts each week per companionship. So
in our weekly planning, Sister Feistner was just joking about how I need
to talk to EVERYONE and was like "okay, I´m only gonna do ten contacts
this week.... and you can do the rest"..... This was a BIG DEAL, cause
she likes to talk A LOT, and usually cant keep her mouth shut... and
since I dont, I just let her do most of the contacts..... I usually dont
even do half of the contacts every week.......... SO, I decided to
take her up on it, and made it one of my goals for the week---with the
purpose of getting over being scared to talk to people, and becoming
more talkative. WELL. It helped a TON. This week was AWESOME because of
that!!!!

Funny thing, we had a multi-zone conference the next day, and all
morning, they were talking about the importance of contacts..... and how
in Preach my Gospel, it says to talk with EVERYONE.... They talked
about how Elder Ballard spoke in Brazil, in our mission??? I´m not
sure... but he spoke about the importance of talking to everyone and
said that if every missionary would faithfully make at least 10 contacts
every day, the number of baptisms in the area would double. Well, I had
already decided to improve my contacts the day before, but this was
just another reason to boost our efforts!! Take him up on the promise of
more baptisms here!

SO.... we realized this week, that our area may not be awesome for
knocking doors... but we have a ROCKING area for contacts. There are so
many people in the streets in center during the day all week long!!!! IT
is crazy!!! This week, I worked way hard to meet all my goals
everyday..... and with contacts, I made 144 this week-- me alone!!!
WOOO. We also had an activity with the ward passing out pass-along
cards.... so our contacts for this week were INSANE.... 514 contacts for
this week!! We talked to a TON of people who didnt want to hear
anything about the church, but we also found a few people that we were
able to teach, and a few that we will be following up with over the next
week. WOOO!! And can I just say real quick that IT WAS SO FUN TO TALK
TO SO MANY PEOPLE THIS WEEK!!!!! yep. that´s all. It was just way fun
and I liked it a lot.

moving on to more important things.............

Last monday... we spent almost our ENTIRE pday walking......
Walking, walking, walking. We went to a lan house with the elders wayyyy
far away, then we got lost on the way back, and ended up walking
through almost our ENTIRE area..... hmmm. then by the time it was like
4oclock, we were starving for lunch, so we decided it would be a clever
idea to try to find a subway.... yep. So we walked some more.... Ended
up finding one.... and then getting home by the time pday was almost
over. So not worth it. hahah.

Tuesday, after I had made my resolve to talk to EVERYONE and just
talk and teach more, we had an awesome day. The ward always makes a list
of lunches for us, and if they cant actually have us over for lunch,
they give us money.... so we went to a little restaurant for lunch and
as we were leaving, I started talking to the waitress/cashier about the
church and stuff. She started talking about prayer and how important it
is to her and started CRYING right then and there.... It was a cool
experience and we got her number to be able to meet up with her
hopefully sometime this week!!

That night, we went to go teach Rodolfo (the ELEITO that sister F.
found last week...BTW, in brazil, you pronounce R´s at the beginning
of words like H´s... so its like "hodolfo"). His mom and brother were
there as well and they were all super nice and invited us in and gave us
some food and everything. Then we got to teach them the first lesson.
Since I had made my resolve to talk more, I DID, and the lesson went
really well!! There really is something important about having a
companionship of two missionaries and testifying of eachother and the
principles that we are teaching.... it went really well. And we were
able to switch off really comfortably (which can be hard for us
sometime). MAN. It was so cool!!! Towards the end of the lesson, they
werent really understanding the importance of authority and how
preisthood authority was RESTORED through the restoration and Joseph
Smith.... I started trying to explain it better, and it was really just
like the promise that says if you open your mouth, it will be filled
through the spirit. Wow. It was crazy. As I was talking, I just
remembered an example that a brazilian sister used in a lesson that we
taught together back in my second transfer.... I hardly spoke portuguese
at the time, and I had NEVER tried to explain this example in
portuguese before, but somehow, it worked perfectly! There was a cup
sitting on there table and I just grabbed it and explained how the
apostasy was as if the cup had fallen and shattered and many churches
were started each with a little peice of the cup, but we needed to have a
restoration to restore the cup entirely, unbroken.......... It was just
a simple thing, but somehow, it CLICKED with Rodolfo, and he got it
after that..... Then it made sense to him WHY we were inviting him to be
baptized again (since he had been baptized as a baby in the catholic
church) and why the message was important. It was way cool.

This week, we taught Rodolfo every day.... we also marked baptism
with him for the 28th. And he is awesome!! He read everything we marked
for him in the book of mormon.... a chapter everday!! AND, he kept
asking for us to mark MORE chapters at a time!! And he was trying really
hard to pray as well........ that is giving him a harder time.....
ahhh. BUT, this weekend, I´m not sure what happened, but seems like
something came up..... he hadnt read OR prayed when we passed
Saturday.... and Sunday when we came to pick him up in the morning for
church, he just never got up and came to the door..... and when we came
by again in the evening, he never answered the door..... ahhh. It is the
WORST when investigators bail on us for church!!! But, hopefully we can
get back in touch with him this week and keep working with him...

Wow. a lot of cool stuff happened this week (in the midst of all
the rude people/tons of walking up and down hills/appointments falling
through/members never wanting to help us/and all the usual...) but I
dont have time for all the stories............. so just a couple more.

Talking to EVERYONE really does bring some blessings......... we
found a cool couple that we taught this week..... the wife is baptist
and very firm in her church, but the husband is very lost and looking
for something in his life. We´re hoping we can help him out with that!!
He talked to us for a longgg time about his life, and a lot of hard
stuff that has happened..... and he really just seems like he is lost,
looking for something (he doesnt know what...) and just has a broken
heart. PERFECT. So, we werent able to teach much, but we left him with a
book of mormon and hopefully this is HIS time to find the
truth...........

In the experience of trying to talk to EVERYONE this week, I
realized that in the hundreds of people we talk to each week that dont
even take the time to listen to us.... in the midst of all that, there
are a few people that we will be able to teach and help. And hopefully, a
few people that are really prepared and will accept the gospel......
We´ll see how it goes.

OH yeah. and we had the pass-along card activity with the ward this
week........... It was cool... but also a little dissappointing... our
ward is pretty big here, but only 6 people showed up for the
activity.......... it was pretty sad. But, we were able to all go out
and pass-out about 250 cards in about an hour. It was way good for the
people that were there, everyone enjoyed it and they were all excited
about missionary work........ but we could have had a TON more people
there and done a lot more...... This ward is gonna be hard. Everyone is
very nice to us and soooooo good about making sure we have food and
everything....... but no one is helping the missionary work here... If
any of you out there having any genius ideas on how we can get our ward
more excited, they would be appreciated.

OH. And sunday....... we have been working with a man who was
baptized the week before we got here, but after his baptism, he kind of
fell away and when he came to church the next week, he ran away before
sacrament meeting started so that he wouldnt recieve the holy ghost and
be confirmed...... So, we´ve been trying to help him and get him back to
church for sunday so he could receive the holy ghost (which will help
him soooo much with the stuff he is going through). Well. That day we
were fasting for him to come to church and to know how to help him
better..... Sadly, he still didnt go to church..... And none of our
investigators came. Which is always frustrating. So sitting in sacrament
meeting, I was kind of frustrated and upset..... What more can we do
here???! But, I guess Heavenly Father had some other blessings in
mind.... After the meeting, the members introduced us to another
investigator. He had come to church a few times when the other sisters
were here, but they had never been able to teach him because he lives in
a type of boarding house with only guys... AND his name wasnt in the
area book.... BUT, he seems WAY cool and is very interested about
learning all about the gospel.... We were able to give him a book of
mormon while at church and mark to meet with him this week!! As I was
marking a chapter in the book of mormon for him, Sister Feistner was
talking to him about baptism and everything..... He didnt accept to be
baptized yet, but I feel like he will. He just started coming to church
out of his own desire because he feels like it will bless his life!!!
Anyways.... I´m hoping for big things for him.... His name is Fernando.

oh yeah. And another thing............... We seem to have great
luck with our showers here.......... our little shower head/water heater
in araras broke TWICE while we were there......... this week, our
shower heater here broke as well. SWEET. I LOVE COLD SHOWERS. not.
hahhaha. We´ll see if we can actually find someone in the ward to come
fix it.......... the family we had lunch with saturday offered to, but
then they marked twice to come by, and then never did.......
hmmmmmmmmmmm. I guess we are just going to be little ice-cubes this
week.

OHHHHHHHHHHH and pigeons!!! Remember how much I hate them????????
oh yeah, well it gets better!! I forgot to tell youall last week........
but when we were sitting in Araras with all our luggage at the
Rodaviária waiting for our bus to leave, a pigeon wayyyyy up in the
rafters about 40, 50 feet above us decided to poop and it landed RIGHT
on my foot. Right on the part of my foot NOT inside my
shoe..............ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. so gross!!!!!!!!!!!

Then, this week, we have been walking up and down the main street
where the chapel is a TON doing contacts and talking with people on the
road and at the bus stop. Above the sidewalk going down that entire
block, there is a stretch of telephone wires where about a hundred
pigeons love to sit ALL day long........ Yep. you called it. I have
BARELY escaped having pigeon poop on my HEAD about 5 times already, and
got some on my foot again........... ugh. I just wish we had a machine
gun so we could shoot the whole line of them down really quick! hahahah.
Or pull back the wires really far and shoot them all off. hahaha. Like
that little pixar short film with alll the birds sitting on the
telephone wires..... (if you dont know what I´m talking about, go find
it..... sooo funny.) I think of that little short film every day.
hahahahaha.

Well.

Love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope you have the best week!!!!!!

thanks so much again for all the emails, letters, love, prayers and support!!! you all are the best!!!!!!!